Author: jdarrow

On Wednesday 9/2/15, CELT shared the information on the new process for managing Canvas course rosters.

Good afternoon all,

We wanted to share some exciting news that will simplify the management of Canvas course enrollments. Enrollments are now automated and reflect student course additions, drops, and withdrawals from the previous day. For example, changes made up to midnight on Wednesday will be reflected on Thursday.

Please do not adjust manually your Canvas rosters. If a student is missing from your roster, s/he has not registered for your course or has not yet submitted a signed schedule adjustment form to the Registrar’s office in Elliot. As always, WebAdvisor is the up-to-the-minute authority on course rosters.

Thank you to Mike Nieckoski (CELT), Dana Clark (Mason Library), and IT for their work on this project.

We’ve had a few questions asking about how to unpublish a Canvas course so we’ve created a handout which is pasted in the table below, and is in the “Getting to Know Canvas” course under “Canvas Tips”.

The other thing you should do is clean out your Canvas Inbox so when you return it’s not cluttered with conversations from previous semesters. Here is how to Archive Conversations.

Finally, “files” has been updated so you can now search for files by name, sort by date created, and publish/unpublish like other course items (assignments, quizzes, pages). Don’t forget you can drag-and-drop multiple files from your computer into Canvas files.

As a reminder Blackboard’s last day is 5/31. Steps for saving content, exporting the gradebook, and downloading student assignments is at the bottom of this page.

Options

How

Why

Unpublish the course

You can unpublish your course by clicking the unpublish button in the default Course Home Page sidebar. However, once your course contains a graded submission, you can no longer unpublish your course.

Unpublished and Publish buttons are on the default course home page.

Unpublishing your course removes it from the students’ course menu. Course materials are no longer accessible.

Term End Date + participate check box + visibility check box

This serves as the unpublish option if there are graded submissions.

Go to settings on the course menu bar.

Under the course details tab enter a term end date.

Select the following 2 checkboxes:

“Users can only participate in the course between these dates” and “restrict students from viewing course after end date.”

Click “update course details”

The combination of these three actions will remove student access to the course.

*Term End Date

When a term end date is used, the course is placed in a read-only state. This means that the course is not available for submitting assignments, posting discussions, uploading files, grading, or any other action-based task within a course.

Students can still view all content.

Go to settings on the course menu bar.

Under the course details tab enter a term end date.

Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “update course details”

Leaving course materials accessible allows students to refer back to important content. This is especially helpful as they can refer back to courses as they progress through their academic career.

See *Term End Date options below if you want to leave some material available but hide other material such as assessments.

*Term End Date options

You can leave your course open for students but you have options for hiding selected content such as quizzes, assignments and other assessments.

Go to settings on the course menu bar.

Click the navigation tab

Drag items such as quizzes to the bottom of the page to hide them from student view.

Click “save.”

Do Not do the following

Do not reset course content

Resetting the course deletes all course content and it is irreversible. Furthermore it changes the course Canvas ID# which impacts student enrollments.

Do not conclude course

A concluded course will no longer appear in the main course list in Canvas. Instead, it will show up in previous enrollments for both instructors and students. Students will no longer have access to the course, and instructors will have access to the course as read only.

CELT shared the information below highlighting the additional Study Hall dates in April and May 2015 to ensure faculty have support they might need saving Blackboard materials. Faculty were encouraged to contact CELT for assistance if the Study Hall dates did not fit with their schedule.

Good morning all,

Please note that we have added 5 more Study Hall dates so you can get assistance with Canvas and guidance on saving Blackboard materials including course gradebooks. If you would like assistance but cannot make the dates below let me know and we can arrange another time.

The dates and times for Study Hall are:

April 7 Tuesday 10-noon

April 15 Wednesday 11-1pm

April 23 Thursday 2:30-4:30pm

April 29th Wednesday 2-4pm

May 5th Tuesday 2:30-4:30pm

May 14th Thursday 12-2pm

May 19th Tuesday 12-2pm

May 20th Wednesday 10-12pm

Below are important steps you should take regarding Blackboard which needs to be done before May 31st, 2015.

Blackboard – Exporting your grade center

It’s good practice to back-up all Blackboard gradebooks in case a student decides to dispute a grade. It is recommended that you keep this information for at least one year. This is more important than ever as no previous student data will be migrated into Canvas. After May 31st 2015 you will no longer have access to this information unless you save it.

If you have a need to review student assignments after Blackboard is longer available (May, 2015) then the only way you will be able to do this is to save them outside of Bb. You can choose to download all or only selected submissions as a single .zip file. Each submission is saved as a separate file within the .zip file.

CELT shared the information below in an email outlining the steps for exporting and saving Bb course grade centers and downloading and saving student assignment submissions. Also included were step-by-step directions and included a reminder to save Bb course materials before May 31st, 2015. The email reminder was sent on Monday, March 30th.

Good morning all,

Below are some important steps you should take regarding Blackboard. Please note that this must be done before May 31st, 2015.

Blackboard – Exporting your grade center

It’s good practice to back-up all Blackboard gradebooks in case a student decides to dispute a grade. It is recommended that you keep this information for at least one year. This is more important than ever as no previous student data will be migrated into Canvas. After May 31st 2015 you will no longer have access to this information unless you save it.

If you have a need to review student assignments after Blackboard is longer available (May, 2015) then the only way you will be able to do this is to save them outside of Bb. You can choose to download all or only selected submissions as a single .zip file. Each submission is saved as a separate file within the .zip file.

CELT shared the information below in an email to all OS and PAT staff on Wednesday, March 18th. The email attachments included steps for saving material for users with a student role and an instructor role and recommended materials are saved in a secure location such as the “P” drive.

Good morning all,

As a reminder, the College is moving away from Blackboard as our learning management system to Canvas. We’ve been working on the transition since last summer and it will be completed by May 31st 2015. That means that Blackboard will not be accessible to users after May 31st. As you may have been a Blackboard user in one or more roles (student, instructor and/or committee member) please check to make certain any materials you want to save are downloaded to a secure location such as your “P” drive (aka “My Documents”).

Please use the information attached to this email to save your Blackboard materials.

CELT re-shared information about saving Blackboard materials in an email to all faculty on Monday 3/16/2015 (originally shared on Tuesday 2/10/2015).

Good afternoon all,

I hope you are enjoying some well-earned rest this week.

This week might be a good time to make sure you have a copy of your Blackboard course materials saved in a secure location such as “My Documents”. Remember, you will not have access to Bb after May 31st, ’15 so now would be a good time to look at materials you want to save including grade centers.

CELT also re-shared information about saving Blackboard materials to students on a MyKSC Announcement on Monday 3/16/2015 (originally shared on Tuesday 1/20/2015).

If you have materials in Blackboard that you created and want to keep please log in and download your materials. As a reminder, the College is wrapping up its transition to Canvas and Blackboard will be inaccessible after May 31st, 2015.

CELT shared the information below in an email to all faculty on Tuesday 2/10/2015. The steps below follow best practices and ensures faculty have the steps necessary to save course materials that might currently reside in Blackboard.

Tip: If Blackboard is no longer accessible after May 2015, what do I need to do to save my old Blackboard course materials?

Faculty who have content on Blackboard will have to download and save it before the end of May 2015. There are several ways in which to do this but here are the steps we recommend:

Use the “Export” tool in Blackboard (not the archive tool)

Blackboard will create a course .zip file. Save this to a secure location. We strongly recommend you use your Keene State “P” drive.

Save the .zip file TWO times (yes, 2 times). The first .zip file can be used to import back into Canvas. Do not open or change this file.

The second .zip file can be opened and files can be modified and saved.

Save the grade center in all of your Bb courses for your records. The grade center is not a part of the Bb course “Export” and must be done individually.

If you want to show student work examples you can but you have to individually download assignment submissions.

On Tuesday, 1/20/15 a high priority announcement on MyKSC was posted encouraging students to save any of their Blackboard materials they want to keep. The announcement duration is 2-weeks with plans to run a similar message in mid-March and again at the end-of-the-semester.

The message is as follows:

Welcome back students!

This is a reminder that the college is in the final stages of transitioning from Blackboard to Canvas. All classes will be in Canvas beginning this semester. If you have materials in Blackboard that you created and want to keep please log into Blackboard and download your materials. Students will have access to Blackboard until the end of the semester.

Here is a very basic guide that will help you download your submitted assignments: http://goo.gl/IAx0Uv

If you need any additional support, please contact the HelpDesk at 358-2532, email helpdesk@keene.edu or stop by our office on the 2nd floor of Elliot Hall.

The CELT team has developed a schedule of Canvas workshops during the month of January including two days packed with topics such as “Settings and Notifications”, “Discussion Boards”, “Rubrics”, and four “Introduction to Canvas” sessions including one in the evening (Wednesday 1/7/15). If all you need are a few nagging questions answered then a Canvas Study Hall might be what you’re looking for. These are not formal intro sessions, nor are they one-on-one appointments, but are intended to provide faculty a place to develop Canvas courses with a Canvas “expert” present to help with questions that arise.

Consider signing up for a workshop or dropping in on our Study Hall on Thursday, January 15th between 11:00am-6:00pm (details can be found in the link below).

Full spring workshop and Study Hall schedule can be found here: goo.gl/p0FEMa

On Thursday, January 15th there is a first-come-first serve drop-in session dedicated to faculty who need an answer to a quick question.

CELT has created a Canvas Help Database populated with frequently asked questions from the Keene State community. While general how-to questions are found in the Canvas Guides, the Canvas Help Database is populated with answers to questions such as: